Pro Patria
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: Another one of the things they don't talk about.


Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them. And Liz named Tommy, way many years ago.

Rated: K

**Author's Note**: For Amy, who has been working very, very hard.

Thanks Owl and Cheri.

**Pro Patria**

_Dulce et decorum est_ _pro patria mori. _Horace

**Nov. 11th, 1983**

Mark McCormick had begun to realize, in the nearly two months he'd been living at Gulls Way, that quiet was a dangerous thing. Silence was very often the first harbinger, a sign that the judge had gone into his lair and was Looking At Things. In fact, very often what seemed at first pass to be silence, if he stood there listening hard enough, was really occupied by the quiet sounds of pen scratching against notepad, or the pages of a file turned over and carefully laid back down again.

Next thing you'd know, Hardcastle would come up the steps at a pounding double time, a smile of anticipation on his face and a folder tucked under his arm, and they'd be off again, careening along on the highway of justice, in hot pursuit of one of the ones who had gotten away.

As hobbies went, it had its moments.

McCormick was giving this some slightly puzzled thought, as he stepped in through the back door intending to make breakfast. It was a habit he'd slipped into since Sarah had been away at her sister's. Not much had been said about it, but Hardcastle had taken to turning up for breakfast as about the same time that Mark had been showing up to make it, and that was that.

This morning, though, there was no sign of activity whatsoever, as he started to take out the breakfast things. He paused in mid-egg cracking, frowned, wiped his hands on a towel, and stuck his head into the dining room—still no sounds. He finally walked all the way into the hall. He got as far as the den—empty—and the stairs.

Nothing—nobody. He considered going up the stairs but he had a sudden and total conviction that there was no one up there, either. This was confirmed a moment later when he stepped back out through the kitchen door and opened the garage.

The spot where the 'Vette usually stood was empty. He hadn't heard it depart in the time since he'd awakened.

It was a mystery, but, then, a lot of what Hardcase did bordered on the mysterious. The man was a closed book for the most part. For now, the main implication was fewer eggs.

_And he oughta let you know when he's going off solo like that._

That thought, which had come along unbidden, startled McCormick a moment after it had occurred to him. If Hardcastle had early morning appointments to keep, it was no business of _his_, he reassured himself.

_Although you're the guy who'll have to scrape his hash out of the fire if something goes wrong. _

Well, yes, there was that. He walked back into the kitchen. Maybe it was just a donut run. _Or some not-quite-legit informant called him late last night and offered to meet him somewhere quiet and out of the way._

_Dammit._

He frowned down at the half-whisked bowl of eggs, and heard the 'Vette's familiar sound as it pulled around back.

He cracked three more eggs.

A moment later, the judge came in the back door—not burdened with donuts. Mark spared him a quick glance over the shoulder, just a nod really, and any questions that he might have been in the process of framing, were cut short by the look on the man's face.

It was distant, reserved, utterly unapproachable. It provoked a hasty review of McCormick's conscience as he returned his eyes to his work. Nothing particularly egregious came to mind. He might have left the set of clippers out in the grass. That wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, but somehow Hardcastle's attitude, whatever the hell it was this morning, did not seem particularly directed at him.

"'Morning," he nodded once more without looking back again.

He got the same thing in return, terse, and yet almost hesitant. Then the judge was past him and heading out of the kitchen.

"Breakfast in a couple of minutes," Mark said to his retreating back. He got no further response, beyond an unintelligible mutter.

00000

He ate his half of the eggs and toast in solitude, feeling a little put upon. If it was the clippers, he wished to hell the guy would just yell at him and get it over with, but he sure wasn't going in there to ask for it.

He scraped the last of the uneaten scraps into the garbage and cleaned up the dishes, at little at ends. He supposed he had standing orders; there was the lawn, if nothing else, though damned if he felt like rewarding this sort of unwarranted irascibility.

He stared absently at the calendar. Friday. Probably not a good morning to ask for a long weekend. His eyes had moved on, then tracked back suddenly to the page on the wall. The eleventh of November. There was something printed there. Small type. He stood up, leaning over and looking more closely.

A holiday. It had escaped him completely—Veteran's Day. He blinked once and looked over his shoulder again.

'_My son's in my memories.' _That's what he'd said, after Joe Cadillac had dredged it up and left it awkwardly lying there. And that had been the last thing he'd said about it, and it was over a month ago. McCormick had put a lid on his own curiosity; he knew a subject that wasn't open to discussion when he saw one.

He slipped out the back door, went and found the clippers where he'd let them the evening before, wiped them down with a rag, and put them away.

00000

By lunchtime Hardcastle had drifted back into view, sitting at the poolside table, reading something from a file. Mark approached cautiously, and was waved into a seat. He was relieved. Doing three hours of self-directed chores was bordering on unprecedented, and he wouldn't have been able to keep up the pretense much longer.

Apparently their mutual strategy was going to be simply to ignore whatever it was that hadn't happened that morning. He figured there wouldn't be much else he'd have to tiptoe around; it wasn't a holiday with any other trappings, aside from an absence of mail delivery, and maybe some appliance sales. He winced. He wasn't sure he would have even noticed it, had it not been for the judge's strange behavior this morning.

He kept his expression neutral; the judge wasn't giving anything away, either.

"You need to take a look at this one," Hardcastle said very evenly, pointing to the file. "I'm thinking we oughta yank this guy's chain a little."

Mark picked up the file, his eyes narrowing as he took in the suspect's credentials.

"CIA?"

"_Ex_-CIA," Hardcastle corrected. "And now he's siphoning off military-grade weapons."

Mark frowned down at the file, suddenly not wanting to ask just what had brought this one to the surface. Instead he joked morbidly, "Don't know why a guy like this needs guns; isn't he the kind who's supposed to know forty ways to kill you with his bare hands?"

"Yeah, well," Hardcastle said flatly, "he's selling them to people who aren't as creative. They just want to be able to pull a trigger and have done with it."

His gaze had drifted off to the horizon, somewhere out past Mark. It stayed there for a few moments and didn't come back to the here-and-now until the younger man cleared his throat and said, "Maybe we can take on the rogue CIA guy _after_ lunch?"

"Oh," Hardcastle looked momentarily startled out of his reverie, "yeah, I suppose. It'll take a while to move the pieces into place." He stood up slowly, taking the file back. "Just read it when you get a chance."

"Between hedges," Mark groused reflexively. It seemed to help. Hardcastle groused right back, mentioning the clippers he'd seen lying out there earlier. McCormick heaved a small, interior sigh of relief and headed into the kitchen to make sandwiches.

**Jan. 1984**

Mark didn't think many Supreme Court nominees got the nod by busting ex-CIA agents for gun running, but somewhere along the way the idea had occurred to him. Could it be that Hardcastle's recent trip to San Rio was the thing that had brought him to the administration's attention?

So maybe that was all it was—a little pat on the back, a 'thank you' of sorts. Maybe he didn't have a thing to worry about. After all, wasn't everyone saying that Hardcastle was the darkest of dark horse candidates?

But then, of course, intervening events, the judge's impromptu 'citizen's arrest' of his would-be muggers, had raised his profile a little more. And in the middle of all of this—really, right from the start—McCormick hadn't had any idea where he was supposed to fit in.

Right now, his job was just to stay out of the way for a little while. Hardcastle was sitting for his second interview, and the last thing he needed was smart remarks from the peanut gallery. Mark strolled down to the lobby, gave a nod to the doorman, and wandered southward till he ended up across the street from the Museum of Natural History. He was in no mood to be a tourist; he felt like he still had some walking to do.

He circumvented the building, and turned right onto the Mall, aiming vaguely for the Washington Monument. Then, having achieved that destination without reaching any further conclusions about his place in the greater scheme of things, he took on the Lincoln Memorial as his new goal.

He reflected at the Reflecting Pool. Would he be handed back to Dalem? Most likely. Maybe he could ask for a different P.O. _But better the devil you know . . ._ No, it really didn't matter. One parole officer versus another, what difference did it make? _Except it had made a difference, having Hardcase._

He looked up from the path in front of him, suddenly aware that he'd come nearly the length of the pool. He took another path to his right, intending to angle back toward the hotel; surely by now Hardcastle would be fed up with the idiotic questions.

He was vaguely aware that there were more people here, on an otherwise quiet January afternoon. He was moving along with the scattered flow, as though toward a destination. Some temporary fencing, off to the left, something under construction, just a pediment so far, and up ahead was a clearing, toward which the others were moving.

He stopped short, suddenly certain of what it was. Maybe he'd caught it in a hushed voice from someone walking nearby.

It was The Wall.

He'd seen some pictures of it. It had been news, even in San Quentin, when it had opened, back in '82. He knew guys who knew guys whose names were on it. He knew someone whose _son's_ name was on it. Though, oddly enough, he'd never heard that son's name spoken.

He looked off to the east, in the direction of the hotel. _Had he been here already? Maybe right after he arrived yesterday. Maybe when it was first dedicated._

No, he didn't think so. Not then, not now. Not the man who never said the name out loud.

He supposed he could go over to it now, walk the length of it and stare into it, a reflecting pool of an entirely different nature. If he looked long enough he would even find the name. He could pry that secret loose.

_And what will that accomplish?_

He shook his head and turned away, taking the safer path up Bacon Drive to Constitution Avenue. It could be worse, he supposed. Better not to be of any matter to anyone, than to matter so much that your death was a scar upon a man's memory.

**May 28th, 1984**

This time he knew what to expect, the slinking off early in the morning, again in the 'Vette. Mark had watched from the upstairs window of the gatehouse. He did not know what the man's destination was, but that wasn't important. He hadn't been carrying any flowers, or little flags. He wore none of the external trappings of grief. It might have been a donut run . . . except that it was Memorial Day.

Nine months and he still did not even know what the younger Hardcastle's first name had been. He figured he could ask Frank, but the thought of doing so embarrassed him somehow. Exactly how he had died, when, all of that, mere circumstances to the solid central fact that he was dead . . . _and you're not._

As much as Hardcastle had protested—the very first thing out of his mouth, the _only_ thing, when the existence of his son had been revealed—that he was not intended to be a substitute, Mark couldn't help but feel at times that he was the misbegotten changeling.

_Where were you in '71? Out of juvie by then. No need to worry about the draft, though. They didn't want the kind of trouble that you were._

_Only the good die young._

He dressed. He went downstairs and across to the main house, where he now went in and out as though he belonged. He got out the breakfast things but set them aside. He figured this errand of the judge's for an hour at least.

He went out back and skimmed the pool, well aware that this activity, unasked for and finished before breakfast, was a frank admission that it wasn't a normal day. Hardcastle could do with that what he would. He couldn't very well give the man a card, 'Sorry for Your Loss'; this would just have to stand in substitute.

Still, he was glad that he was done, and the equipment put away, before he heard the 'Vette coming up the drive. He ducked back into the kitchen, just in time to be taking a leisurely approach to breakfast preparations when the judge came in.

Mark didn't even look up, just said good-morning and continued on with the bacon. He got a brief greeting back from the judge, who didn't go straight though and into the other room this time. Instead, he stepped over to the cabinet and took out a couple of plates, then took some silverware from the drawer.

Once these were set out, he took a place at the table. Mark mastered the puzzlement in his expression before he turned around, carrying the food. The judge looked self-contained—not exactly remote, but hardly chatty, either.

Mark escaped back to the counter for a moment. The toast was up and there was coffee to be fetched. After that, however, he was pretty much stuck sitting down across from the man and making a stab at conversation.

He sat, but hadn't yet had enough time to gather his thoughts when he heard the judge clear his throat and then take a slightly deep breath.

"His name was Tom," the judge said flatly, though there was absolutely nothing matter of fact about it. "Thomas Caleb," he added, "after Nancy's father and mine."

Mark froze for a moment, then lowered himself the rest of the way into his seat, still having said nothing. It didn't matter.

"It's just that, from the minute you find out you're going to be a father," Hardcastle continued quietly, almost as though he was speaking to himself, "it's all there, so clear in your mind's eye. The stuff you're going to do together, what you'll show 'em." He shook his head once, as if he was trying to shake off a thought that wouldn't depart without being spoken. "But the one thing you never imagine," his voice had grown a little more hesitant, "is that you'll have to bury 'em, and . . . visiting the grave."

It was . . . absolutely unexpected, and as raw and black as a spade-full of upturned earth. The two of them sat there silently, one having said his piece and the other at a complete loss for words.

Hardcastle's chin was down, his eyes fixed on something that was probably not the plate that sat in front of him. Mark fumbled through every consolatory phrase he could think of and found them all unacceptable.

He finally said, after what felt like several minutes, "I, um, thought maybe I'd get the grill out, make some burgers later. If, ah . . ." He bit hit tongue. _There, now you've done it. That was totally inappropriate. No wonder he clams up about it around you, when you go and say something like that._

But, to his surprise, the judge's gaze had come back up to give him a considering look, and his expression was leaning toward something that might have been relief, maybe gratitude even. It was as though, having wandered into some dark mental cul-de-sac, he'd just caught sight of a very ordinary flashlight, guiding him back onto the path.

Grilling some burgers. Normality.

The smile was small but clearly there. "Sounds okay. Though I'm not sure what it means, when you haven't even finished breakfast and you're talking about lunch."

"It means we lead a dull life. Meals and hedges and car maintenance. _Dull_," Mark reiterated.

"So maybe I should go pull some files while you take a whack at the hedges."

"Might help," McCormick replied quietly. "You never know."


End file.
